Quotes about War
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live. -- Martin Luther King Jr., June 23, 1963. Speech in Detroit.
You can have peace, or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John Stuart Mill
When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -- Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. -- John Adams in letter to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves. -- Winston Churchill
Right is more precious than peace. -- Woodrow Wilson
The God of War hates those who hesitate. -- Euripides, 480-406 b.c
The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility -- British Sea Lord John Fisher
All that is essential for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
He who stays on the defensive does not make war, he endures it -- Field Marshal Colmar Baron von der Goltz, 1883
If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war. -- George Washington
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others. -- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 34
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -- Winston Churchill
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams
The only power tyrants have, is the power relinquished to them by their victims. -- Éttiene de la Boétie, 1552
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. -- Thomas Paine
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments, where they will certainly be lost. -- William Lloyd Garrison
The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other bastard die for his. -- General George S. Patton
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined. -- George Washington, First Annual Address, January 8, 1790.
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can. -- Winston Churchill
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. -- Dwight David Eisenhower
One should never allow chaos to develop in order to avoid going to war, because one does not avoid a war but instead puts it off to his disadvantage. -- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 3
There is one source, O Athenians, of all your defeats. It is that your citizens have ceased to be soldiers. -- Demosthenes
Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war!) -- Flavius Vegetius Renatus (ca 390 AD) in Epitoma rei Militaris
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war. -- Ernest Hemingway
We make war that we may live in peace. -- Aristotle 325 B.C.
War is too serious a matter to be taught by the inexperienced. -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
Where there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph. -- Pierre Corneille
Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die. -- Herbert Hoover
The sinews of war are not gold, but good soldiers; for gold alone will not procure good soldiers, but good soldiers will always procure gold. -- Niccolò Machiavelli
What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralisation and disorder on the part of the inferior ... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior. -- Florence Nightingale
Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning. -- -- General George S. Patton
War does not determine who is right - only who is left. -- -- Bertrand Russell
Cry "havoc!" and let loose the dogs of war,
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
-- William Shakespeare "Julius Caesar"
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. War is hell. -- William Tecumseh Sherman
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. -- Margaret Thatcher
No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops, and in the long run no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: 'Come back with your shield, or on it.' Later on, this custom declined. So did Rome. -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long
In the long run luck is given only to the efficient. -- Helmuth von Moltke, founder, German Imperial Army
The concentration of troops can be done fast and easy, on paper. -- Field Marshal Radomir Putnik
The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes. -- Karl von Clausewitz, 19th Century Prussian General
...an imperfect plan implemented immediately and violently will always succeed better than a perfect plan. -- General George S. Patton
Some people live their entire lifetime and wonder if they ever made a difference to the world. Marines don't have that problem. -- United States President Ronald Reagan, January 1995
Superior firepower is an invaluable tool when entering negotiations. -- General George S. Patton
The best form of welfare for the troops is first-class training. -- Field Marshal Rommel
Humanize war? You might as talk about humanizing hell! -- British Admiral Jacky Fisher
Victory in war does not depend entirely on numbers or courage; only skill and discipline will ensure it. -- Flavius Vegetius, AD 378
Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory. -- General George S. Patton, Jr.
What is our aim? Victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; Victory how ever long and hard the road may be. -- Sir Winston Churchill
In war there is no substitute for victory. -- Douglas MacArthur
Diplomats are just as essential in starting a war as soldiers are in finishing it. -- Will Rogers
We know we can't beat you on the battlefield, but we can beat you on the streets of New York Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. -- North Vietnamese camp commander, Son Tay POW camp to Commander Paul Galanti, U.S. Navy, American POW.
There is one tactical principal which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time. -- General George S. Patton Jr.
To lead uninstructed people to war is to throw them away. -- Confucius 480 B.C.
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. -- Hyman G. Rickover 1986
The Sergeant is the Army. -- Dwight David Eisenhower, 1972
Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive one; it is man and not materials that counts. -- Mao Tse-tung 1938
In war there is no second prize for the runner-up. -- General Omar Bradley 1950
It is sweet and honorable to die for your country. -- Horace
If ever there was a holy war, it was that which saved our liberties and gave us independence. -- Thomas Jefferson
The patriot volunteer, fighting for country and his rights, makes the most reliable soldier on earth. -- Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson
A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honor. -- Theodore Roosevelt
No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence. -- Woodrow Wilson
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. -- Calvin Coolidge
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. -- Sir Winston Churchill
[L]et us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us re-consecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain. -- Dwight Eisenhower
The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. -- Douglas MacArthur
It's been my responsibility, my duty and very much my honor to serve as Commander in Chief of this nation's Armed Forces these past eight years. That is the most sacred, most important ask of the Presidency. Since our nation's founding, the primary obligation of the national government has been the common defense of these United States. But as I have sought to perform this sacred task as best I could, I have done so with the knowledge that my role in this day-to-day-to-day effort, from sunrise to sunrise, every moment of every hour of every day of every year, is a glancing one compared to yours. ... But it's not just your fellow Americans who owe you a debt. No, I believe many more do, for I believe that military service in the Armed Forces of the United States is a profound form of service to all humankind. You stand engaged in an effort to keep America safe at home, to protect our allies and interests abroad, to keep the seas and the skies free of threat. Just as America stands as an example to the world of the inestimable benefits of freedom and democracy, so too an America with the capacity to project her power for the purpose of protecting and expanding freedom and democracy abroad benefits the suffering people of the world. -- Ronald Reagan, 1989
We do not admire a man of timid peace. -- Theodore Roosevelt
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. -- Daniel Webster
History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid. -- President Dwight Eisenhower
No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation. -- General Douglas MacArthur
Courage is resistance to fear, master of fear -- not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward, it is not a compliment to say it is brave. -- Mark Twain
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! --Patrick Henry March 23,1775
When you see a rattlesnake poised to strike, you do not wait until he has struck before you crush him. --Franklin D. Roosevelt
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. --John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Washington, D.C. January 20, 1961
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. --Andrew Jackson (03/15/1767 - 06/08/1845) U.S. President
Four freedoms: The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of everyone to worship God in his own way, everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world.--Franklin D. Roosevelt U.S. President
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